Resources for Helping Students Learn from Failure

Nobody likes failing, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from those times when we come up short of our goals. In fact, learning to cope and overcome failure is an important skill as we get older, and is an important value to instill in students as they grow. Edutopia has put together a great guide filled with different resources for helping students learn from the times they fail. Check out an excerpt below, or read the original article on their site.

Fostering Growth-Friendly Learning Environments

5-Minute Film Festival: Freedom to Fail Forward: Watch a curated video playlist about learning from failure, and consider sharing a few of the videos with students to fuel discussion about failure as a part of the learning process. (Edutopia, 2015)

Making Friends With Failure: Understand how to reframe failure by modeling vulnerability, focusing on questions and data instead of mistakes, and teaching children about great stories of failure. (Edutopia, 2013)

Activities That Teach About Mistakes

Teaching Empathy Through Design Thinking: Follow five steps to implement design thinking in the classroom; during the prototyping phase, students will learn that it is okay to fail and that it’s possible to learn and grow from mistakes. (Edutopia, 2015)

Crumbled Reminder: Print out an activity idea with instructions for an activity that can help students think about how they can use mistakes. (PERTS Mindset Kit)

My Favorite No: Watch a short video that shows how one teacher selects a "favorite no" from multiple wrong answers and ask students to analyze what is right about the solution before delving into what is wrong. (Teaching Channel, 2011)